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Snowbum's BMW Motorcycle Repair &
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If you want to help by donating: DONATING(Includes history, philosophy & extensive information on how I
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Snowbum and Penny.
Amor Vincit Omnia!!

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool...shun him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows
not, is willing...teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep...awaken him.
He who knows, and
knows that he knows, is wise...follow him."
--Chinese proverb--

but, UNfortunately, there is THIS:The internet, and E-mail LISTs are places we can easily witness the following effects. Worth your time to read at these 3 links:

There is a theory which states that if anyone ever discovers exactly what the Universe is for,
and why it is
here,
it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There
is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams,
"The Hitchiker's
Guide to the Galaxy"

Below, in my seventies, I'm at the top
of Heavenly
Valley SkiResort, 5 miles
from my house (plus a
lot of vertical!),
just before doing Ellie's Run, one of
of my favorite runs on the California
side. It is
mostly hidden, begins just
to the left in this photo,
and a photo
of it from near the very top, is below.

The K1100LT-EML Sidecar rig...
back when it still had the BMW
Police type box on rear & had the solo seat

A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car;
the difference between
driving a car and
climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference
between
watching TV and actually living your life.
We spend all our time
sealed
in boxes, and cars
are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from
home-box to work-box to store-box and back...
the whole time,
entombed in
stale air, temperature
regulated, sound insulated, and smelling
of carpets.
On a motorcycle I know I'm alive.

When I ride, even the familiar
seems
strange and glorious.
The air has weight
and
substance as I push
through
it
and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer.
I can see everything in a sweeping 360
degrees, up, down
and around,
wider than Pana-vision and IMAX and unrestricted by
ceiling or dashboard.
Sometimes I even hear music.
It's like hearing phantom
telephones in the shower,
or
false
doorbells when
vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise,
raises
acoustic ghosts out of the
wind's roar.
But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock 'n
roll,
dark orchestras, women's voices,
all hidden in the air and
released by speed. ... Dave Karlotski

Below is my 1983 R100RT-Ural.
First road rig I ever constructed. We DO get
that much snow some years. Going to the ski slopes.

1984 R100RT for long-distance touring. Top-box is Luftmeister. Photo at the same place as one to the left.
Sold and gone: CLICK

There is cold......and there
is cold on a motorcycle.
Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while
being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold.
The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and
whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don't
even feel like water.
They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell
to pock my face.
I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with
blood, but that's just an illusion,
just the misery of nerves not
designed for highway speeds.
Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and
I rush to get it on the road again in the spring;
lapses of
sanity like this are common among motorcyclists.
When you let a motorcycle into your life you're changed forever.
The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver's license right
next to your sex and height as if "motorcycle"
was just another
of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.
But when warm weather finally does come around,
all those cold
snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a motorcycle summer
is worth any price.
At 30 miles an hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid.
All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells
flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony.
Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as
though the past hangs invisible in the air around me,
wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock
it.
A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous.

The sheer volume and
variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system,
an
electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul.
It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb...
but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy
smiles flap against the side of my face,
billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane.
Transportation is only a secondary function.

A motorcycle is a joy
machine.
It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic.
It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping
over each other;
it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for
bonding the gritty and the holy.

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control.
The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper,
"Sleep, sleep."
Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and
exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good,
but
that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride. Dave Karlotski
Winters can vary considerably at Lake Tahoe. The below photo was taken
during the 2007-2008 Winter.
Notice the snow height at Penny's feet & at right lower corner & area under
the mailbox.
Nearly to Penny's hips OVERNIGHT! This was NOT terribly unusual here.
BUT, some Winters we have very little snow....
so, see the next in-line photo
below this one.

This photo was taken January 17th, 2015

My FIRST trip to Tahoe, as an early teenager, was
in 1952, when a huge January snowstorm essentially shut
down travel to/from Lake Tahoe. The below photo is from JULY of that same year, AFTER plowing!

1952, January....there is a road here someplace?
This is what it looked like a couple of days AFTER
I managed to leave! While I was here, there was
no road visible, it was just many feet of snow!
This was a 'hundred year' type of storm.

The
Technical Articles List page (clickable place is near bottom of this page) has a lot
more information on using my material.
...PLEASE read it! Chances are you
are headed there anyway to find a technical advice article....but don't miss
what is clickable at the bottom of the page you are now looking at.

NOTE! In general, my technical article pages show a copyright date at the top, and at the bottom. These are NOT necessarily the date that the original article was copyrighted by me.
I SOMETIMES change the year date if it does not already agree with the present year, but only when I make an update to content or other information associated with that page. Yes, I am aware that this is not the correct way to use a copyright date.

There are two roads in life, the twisty one is vastly more funReputation is what you are perceived to be, character is what you are.
REAL character means doing what is right
(when nobody is looking)

Common sense isn't
Most folks look intelligent.....then they say somethingBe careful when arguing with an idiot.
Folks watching may get confused as to who that is.Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS.
YOU CAN'T LIVE LONG ENOUGH
TO MAKE THEM ALL YOURSELF!

The Purpose Of An Open Mind---Is To Close It On Something
I was always taught to
respect my elders, but it keeps getting harder to find one.Remember, half the people you know are below average.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design
something completely foolproof...
is to under-estimate the ingenuity of complete
fools. Question: How are politicians similar
to diapers?
They should be changed often --- and for the same reason.

The Goal Of Every Engineer Is To Retire Without
Being Blamed For A Major Catastrophe.
Logic is an organized procedure, for going wrong with confidence and certainty.It is a fact that light travels faster than the speed of sound,
this explains why some guys would appear bright,
until you hear them speak.

Penny & I took the K1100LT-EML sidecar rig from Lake Tahoe across the USA via Nevada, lower Utah & Colorado, into Kansas & then northerly to the Great Lakes region, then
to Duluth Minnesota.
We returned mostly
via Hy 2 across the top
of the
USA...over 5500
miles total.
A text & photo blog on the trip is on this website.CLICK

Not all that proficient on editing E-mails? Want to know
how to do it better?
Want to know about special keyboard characters,
ETC. ?CLICKInfo is near very bottom of the page you will be taken to.

What's with this lamp?
What is/was SuperTech Weekend?
ClickHEREfor details
on both!